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Volkswagen’s upcoming 270-hp, all-wheel-drive Golf R is an impressive hot hatch, and for the annual Wörthersee GTI meet, VW chopped off its lid to create the Golf R cabriolet concept. We recently drove the new, Euro market-only Volkswagen Golf cabriolet and came away smitten with its driving manners and clean, basket-handle-less top-down looks. VW engineers have made a good thing even better by adding all of the Golf R’s go-fast goodies. This means that in addition to the R’s 4Motion all-wheel drive and powerful 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, the cabrio sits on a similarly lowered suspension and sports huge 19-inch wheels through which 17-inch brake discs clasped by blue calipers painted with the R logo are visible.

The interior of the Golf R cabriolet concept features grey nappa and dark blue carbon leather slathered over thin racing seat shells. The leather is set off by contrasting piping and liberal amounts of carbon, aluminum, and piano black trim. Volkswagen claims the Golf R cabrio posts identical performance numbers to its roofed counterpart, and while we found almost no chassis flex in the regular Golf cabrio, it remains to be seen if that is the case for the roofless R. VW is mum on whether we are looking at potentially the hottest (no pun intended) topless production Golf cabrio, but we don’t see why it couldn’t become a reality given its utilization of existing components and platforms.

Volkswagen will also show off two closed-top Golf R “concepts” at the Wörthersee GTI meet, previewing possible special trim packages and paint colors for the production Golf R, and of course its Euro-only GTI Edition 35 that we reported on a few weeks ago. Check out the Golf R cabrio concept in the gallery below.